No Damage in Gran Turismo 5?

Reader derrickgott007 had a little PM conversation with one of the GT devs (skebe) over at the official PlayStation Forums.

It went something like this:

derrickgott007: People are already exploting the no damage to ruin the leaderboards….There are videos on Youtube on how to get 1.07min lap times by fence riding and going full speed into the turns to riccoceht off the fence….Please put in damage to stop these people.

skebe: Sorry for not being able to respond earlier… didn't know until today that this forum had a PM feature

Although we're not ready to implement damage until they can be shown in a truly authentic way (which is extremely hard work if you think about it), we are doing our best to avoid these kind of 'cheating' to take place.

The article is about damage in "GT:HD", and how the blogger wishes it was in so people wouldn't ride walls to get faster times.

It says nothing about damage and GT5. The writer is just twisting information and making an "ass"umption. Or he's miss informed about what GT:HD is supposed to be (ie not GT5).

Here's a few quotes....

"Although we’re not ready to implement damage until they can be shown in a truly authentic way (which is extremely hard work if you think about it), we are doing our best to avoid these kind of ‘cheating’ to take place."

Also,

"No I mean, really really really hard work… to the extent of creating another game, almost. From our standards, what other racing games are doing is ’simplified damage’. You know how **bleep** we are when making our games… we would want to simulate every single dent differently"

I think this is a big mistake. I know lots of people that think not having damage makes the game worse and I have to say that I think that is true. Damage makes the game more life and GT has always been about being a life like game and even if adding damage means people have to wait longer for the game I think people would do that.

I would say I have to agree. When I was watching those DIRT videos posted a little bit ago and saw literally no damage I was really disappointed and actually very turned off. Not even a broken windshield or a dented door, seriously how could you get away with that?

I like seeing things get smashed when I ram into other things... what can I say?

You obviously haven't seen the video of Dirt where they actually show the damage engine in full effect. Basically the guy hits 2 trees. After the first tree his vehicle is mashed up and not performing well. After the second it's not functional and he's out of the race.

Compared to Motorstorm where your car reappears magically healed I'd say that makes the game much more challenging.

there is none like it on the planet. as you drive and you smash into other cars and things you litterally see your vehicle get trashed and worn and torn apart it also affects the performance of your vehicle. the only time you "Magically reappear" as you claim is when you chrash which looks spectacular might i add or fall of a cliff. which brings the acrade racer to a much more realistic sense. Dont be mad because there aint a game on the xbox360 that does what motorstorm does. thats why you all wish you had it. still dirt looks interesting and i'll probably rent it just to see if it's anything like Motorstorm.

No, I have not apparently. I would appreciate it if you link me to somewhere I could view this because as of the two gameplay videos I would not buy the game because of the lack of any damage during gameplay. I would purchase GT even if there wasn't any damage though; I just love the games.

Well to be honest, seeing how they are pushing next gen, sim blah blah, this should be a full on damage title.

Think this is a bad mistake.

I play toca 3 online, and there are other problems ,like being rammed and push u off the track all the time.

But thats against other ppl.(idiots)Who do not slow down at bends. Which stops it being realistic,(Meaning if you wanted to win a race or title, you wouldnt go on ramming ppl) Thing is with toca, if u do get rammed, 9times out of 10, you'll end up near last. But its still fun.

But there should always be a damage system. Otherwise you can do anything you want, which is very stupid.

SONY IF YOU EVER READ THIS SITE,(PROBABLY NOT) YOU SHOULD MAKE A DAMAGE SYSTEM.

For these authentic games, the software developer houses need to licence the cars from the auto manufacturers. When this is done there are certain stipulations as to what can be done with the car in tha game. I'm sure there's clauses to ensure that "there won't be dead babies nailed to the hood of the car" or other things that might hurt the image of the auto manufacturer.

As a reason I'm sure most of these companies don't want their vehicle to appear damaged in the games. As a result I'd imagine that they would ask that the vehicles in game not be damaged. They probably have a price incentive to not have the models damaged. In other words, to have our vehicles in your game you must pay us x amount of money per copy sold, in order to have the vehicle WITH damage you must pay x+y per copy sold.

So it's either the folks at Polyphony Digital are cheap or they can't program a damage model. Take your pick. ;)

the reason why car manufacturers don't want their cars damaged is because it would give the people that play the games, which are either potential buyers of their product or will be in the future, a since of vulnerability and weakness in their product which in a car is not a very good quality to have.

then it'll be a HUGE let down. i have enjoyed GT series since the first one and 2 things have always stuck out... 1 is damage, the other is online play. i'm sure GT5 will have the latter, but no damage is ridiculous

Damage in the other top notch racers is too simple? we would wan't to do more than simple dents?, on the real setting(its called something else i know) in Forza 2 you fuc* you car up and it runs like sh*t.

more than 45 Million strong (best ever) and that was done with no damage. I like how skebe was quick to point out that while there is damage in other competitor's titles it really is "simple" and not true to physics, materials dynamics or collateral damage.

Yes, it does stink that someone can screw up the leaderboards and fence ride, but I believe that Yamauchi ( in his infinite car and game wisdom) will find a patch around this. Like taking the truly fastest real-life time and then setting the disqulaifying bar at say 10 seconds below it -- that would work.

It also shows the vast amount of "true - to - life" car detail and environment detail that GT continues to saturate us in - in their games. Remember Circuit de La Sarthe and Citti di Arria? WOW truly epic levels. For skebe to say that including true (algorithimed - out) car crashes and collateral damage would be like "creating a whole new game" shows the amount of discerning care and attention to detail that has gone and contiues to go into this epic series -- WOW.

They could never include car crashing for me and I would still cop the game the first day (and will). I'm not one of those people that loves to see spectacular crashes in a video game. Even in Motorstorm where it's almost like a sideshow to watch; if you're crashing you suck and you're losing...so dont talk about crashing all of the time. Last time I checked the object of racing is not to crash, right?

Now valence damage, diffusers, body panels, and even engine trouble are things that I see when I go to GT races around the world, but this does not cause the drivers to go flying off the track and slamming into walls like mad men. They wouldn't hold their positions very long iof they did. However, to see these types of limitators in GT wouls be nice (maybe as a patch someday) but to the average Joe picking up the game the first time to play -- All of these tedious, involved and super realistic problems would drive most of you same people that talk about crashing, to talk about "how hard it is; and it's too difficult for novices, etc...." In other words knowing Kazanouri's team and the absolute die-hard afection they have for racing excellence -- it would be hard pressed to please all of the naysayers out there; and I think he know's that.

Hey, the college project has brought him this far. Why screw with a good thing, eh?

aw man.. cmon, crashing in motorstorm is the funnest, seriously, i will just play the game to get in some crazy crashes, hehe, but yeah i see waht you are saying. It would be insanely hard if there were actual real life effects of crashes, shoot, just going into a wall at 40 miles an hour will push in the bumper/fender into the wheel well and make steering and driving impossible. GT is all about real world physics of the rubber hitting the road. Thrown in real world physics and effects of crashes, even at speeds of 40 miles an hour, and you get a car that you can't drive anymore. GT won't dumb it down for anyone, whichever way they go, its gonna be a great game.

Because sony fans are stubborn and had nothing else to choose from unless they got a new system. Sony has had a great install base for some time now and that is why the game sells well. If you compare that game honestly with others of the same type you will see that gt is not the best racing sim. myself and many other gamers will agree that even back on the dreamcast when metropolitan street racer (now known as project gotham series) blew away gt in the realism factor. Sony and the gt series is stuck on themselves. even the pro race driver series is so much more realistic and better looking to boot. Oh and all the games that blow away gt have damage systems in place.

exactly my point man. Yeah the crashes in Motorstorm are uber-spectacular of which maybe 1% of the people would walk away from in real life. Crashing in racing is a very violent, costly, and embarrassing event to occur for the driver, so I don;t see why so many people here relish it as if they want to "crash?"

Yeah, there's nothing like racing 12 hours at the Le Mans (against other players on-line) or even Magny-Cours only to find out that your hydraulic pressure from your oil reserves is dropping from a small manifold or crankcase leak or that your rack and pinion has been compromised by flying out of control at the Mulsanne Chicanes on the back straights at Sarthe. Hell, they even retire the driver in NASCAR when there is not enough duct tape to repair damage caused by a hard rub or wall grab. Rarely do you see cars finishing and WINNING with considerable damage done to body parts, much less mechanical, unsprung moving parts. I don't want to get too technical, but I think that there are those out there who really think Forza is a true to life driving experience because of "dumbed-down" crashes, and therefore they hold that up as a measure of the games worth. C'mon be serious please.

Look...this can go many ways. Do you want ultra-realism that will force you to conform to real life variables to include complete retirement from a championship, thus cutting your enthusiasm for replay down considerably? Or do you want a formidable racer endorsed by some of the best manufacturers (BMW, Sauber-Mercedes, Ford, Pescarolo, Chevrolet, Oreca, RuF, Nissan, TommyKaira, Honda, and Lexus just to name a few) in the world, when it comes to pavement meeting the ground like you so eloquently stated.

I think the world has decided in the past, and the numbers do not lie -- the most sold for any racing franchise. Period.

Gran Turismo will always be the King of Racers on consoles. I think everyone can agree or disagree as they might, but having the best selling racing frachise on the shelves, pretty much speaks for itself.

I have no doubt that this butt-kiccking sales trend will continue with the release of 5, and I hope Yamauchi & Co. are just playing with our minds right now with this damage leak -- ya know, stirring things up right now just to keep GT relevant and still on peoples minds since he wasn't able to release when he originally wanted to. Oh those witty, wily Japanese. Gotta love it!

READ ME - (truer than you think) - Anybody see this as a hint? Just like Kojima hinted at rumble...here they are hinting at a complete overhaul...better damage than any other game out there. It's a sly jab, that implies it's going to be the best ever :) devs like messing with us, they've done it so many times before.

Yeah it doesnt say either way. Could be a hint either way... Still am having a hard time finding this guys credentials to see if he works with them or not... who knows... we need some confirmation that this is a news article and not some idiot just posting on the psforums. there are plenty.

HAHA true POG...Where are all the fanboys bashing Forza at? GT5 is the Super bestest Sim out there!! HAHA ya sim no damage ...HUH I guess it is an arcade sim... To bad though.. Forza is going to be pretty good but noone better ram me off the rode in Forza id be pissed..lol

Personal choice of the developers I think. If they don't want to implement damage then they must have a good reason for it, we are not developers we are consumers so if you don't like it don't buy it. Simple as that.

Guys GT isn't burnout, or any other game, its a true world driving sim. Crashes don't fall into the mix and never have. The game is about racing, not crashing. If you hit walls in GT you are penalized by loosing position & time to others! Therfore the focus is to not crash, get it! And to the little xbots complaining, who cares about your damn pgr games, we play the most realistic hands down best looking racing game ever made! And the best selling racing franchise to boot!

So go play your little pgr and get a 1000 bonus points and an achievmant award for crashing straight into a wall, hehe thats supposed to be real racing, give us a break!

The GT series is a solid series and its always been a great game so I wont argue that with you.

BUT...you said: "its a true world driving sim. Crashes don't fall into the mix and never have. The game is about racing, not crashing. If you hit walls in GT you are penalized by loosing position & time to others! Therfore the focus is to not crash, get it!"

My retort to you is...in the true world of driving and racing...Crashing is a very real part of the sport/technique. Crashing is the largest penalty any driver in any race recieves for taking a bad line, not braking properly. Sure you can bump someone in a race and not crash...you can spin out even at times and still get back on coarse....but more times than not if in the REAL world you slam into a guard rail at 40 - 100mph it is going to have a MAJOR impact on your car...and if you hit another car going 40-100mph when they are braking into a turn...its going to have a MAJOR impact on your car in the form of crashes and damage that will render your car and the other one ..if not more out of commission.

So please....do not try and tell us that GT is a "true world driving sim". It's a driving game that has true world car physics, but it is by no means a real sim if it does not factor in crashes/collisions and car damage from those.

if they delay the game for another 4-5 months to do that i wouldn't mind. Gt is that kind of game i'll wait for... it's just amazing ^^ simply cant wait. i aint worried besides GT games have never made there sheduled release date... i'd say rather than winter 2007 which is Dem-feb. we'll likely see GT5 in it's full entirety some time around april or may next year which really aint bad. i dont mind waiting for quality.

Gran Turismo was a great series. It was the best racing simulation game for a console for the longest time.

I don't see a lack of damage being a critical issue for the game. It hasn't had it in the past, and it's done very well. However, exploits and glitches that allow you to cheat because of it should be fixed.

All that being said, damage really does add to the realism and help round out a racing (or driving) simulator as a true simulator. Yes it's alot of work, yes it requires more negotiating on license agreements, but in the end, you are left with a product that feels more real.

I am looking forward to Forza 2. I'm not bashing Gran Turismo at all, I think it was a genre defining title. But I think Forza is quickly becoming the new leader of the pack.

Firewire, notice no one is talking about PGR, we're talking about sim racing. If Forza can have it, why can't GT? I love both games, I really do. I love the feel of how each one drives.

But I do think damage adds to the sim aspect. The cars in GT4 hardly ever budge if hit, yet can knock you around. In Forza, if they do, or hit them, you damage your axel, gearbox, etc, and the car is screwed.

I know it's all about racing the perfect line, but with damage, there's no taking advantage of boucing of other cars or walls. Keeps people really honest, even a slight bump can mess up your car in Forza.

Definitely the right attitude. GT, Forza.... their both great racing simulators.

The majority of people who love Forza for what it is, a racing simulator, appreciate the damage/crashing because it adds to realism, NOT because they want to crash.

If you really care about realism and simulation, you want your opponents to be able to total their car if they make a critical error, you want them to pay for misjudging a turn and going off the track. It's not because you personally want to crash your car (though there are always people who do).

Forza 2 has a physics damage engine that ia locked at 360fps, real-time lighting, HDR, graphics rendering locked at 60fps. Now that is how a racing SIM is done. This months game informer has all the info.

I mean I think damage adds to the realism, but fans of the series are already aware that the title just doesn't do that, so I don't think this will stop them from buying it. it may however stop non-turismo fans from hopping onboard.

I think that even though damage has not been implemented yet they will. All he said was they haven't done it yet because they haven't been able to do it realisticly, which I'm sure they will be able to acomplish someday. If they dont have damage in the beginning I think they will still eventually release a patch to add in damage. So stop worrying about it.

Not to burst your bubble, but if they don't do damage on release, day 1, there isn't going to be a patch adding damage later on. No doubt they will have already moved on towards developing GT6 and minor bug/glitch fixes for GT5.

Damage modeling and the physics needed for realistic damage is not something you can easily just patch in. It requires a game engine built with damage in mind from the ground up. If GT5 doesn't have it day one, don't expect it.

The drifting and handling on the cars has yet to be matched in my opinion Also the tracks in GT especially the mountain and forest ones are the best of any car game period. But it is time for next gen damage here. I have my eye on this to buy a PS3. Damage is not that important to me but if motorstorm can do it and last years Burnout revenge does it incrdibly well than these guys are just milking the franchise. You cant just keep releasing the same game over and over without something new. GT4 got stale damage would fix it.

I love how all these "SIMULATION" fans keep whining that GT doesn't need damage.

...a title that prides itself on a constant search for realism, where you ahve always been able to pinball off of opponents because of the lack of any damage modeling whatsoever,

...and yet they contantly **** otherwise when anything about the game is even remotely unrealistic, an they all threw a collective tantrum when the devs even thought about putting Nitrous in GT4 because it was waaayyy too unrealistic for this sort of racing and it would just allow people to "cheat" instead of truly racing.

...while at the same time saying damage is unnecessary. Though it allows people to cheat and is totally unrealistic.

And FOR THE LOVE OF GOD PEOPLE- YOU CAN TURN THE DAMAGE ON OR OFF IN FORZA. THE GT DEVS COULD PROBABLY MANAGE TO PUT THIS IN AS WELL. IF YOU DON'T LIKE DAMAGE, YOU SHOULDN'T BE FORCED TO HAVE IT EVEN WHEN IT IS EMPLEMENTED. [/end yelling]

How about instead of worrying about damage.. worry about a better AI that doesn't stay in a single line format and tries to pass each other. An AI that is willing to bump and grind with each other and you. I mean GT isn't team racing so why do they all seem to team up on you instead of racing everyone to that finish line. Every single one of them stayed in that perfect line around the track. You always start in the dead last position. Mayabe add qualifying to the tracks also. I don't know, I have always enjoyed the series ever since GT was first released and it has only gotten better graphically but I'm tired of graphic upgrades.. I want better AI upgrades to make the racing a better "simulation". Now that's something I would like to see in the game.

I know no damage is not exactly sim racing but the feel of how the cars reacted and how each car reacted is great. The whole wall riding is only an issue in online.. I don't see that a problem in the solo play. I liked fine tuning ym tranny, tires, suspension, and everything for each track and making sure I had the best setup.

I personally like looking at that picture perfect car during the whole race and looking at the detail they went into making that car look like the real life counterpart. If damage is added I won't complain but I think the series needs other things before damage is implemented.

on the wall riding bug in GT :well, this isnt the only game that has had the secret bug cheats exploited. there are cheats in ridge 7 to get fame points up, isnt there a bug in gears too? some weird jumping cheat or bug.

but no one down talks those games for their exploits.

this is probably something the devs over looked and will be fixed in a patch ....or not considering its a demo.

still, any honest gamer who has had experience with both wont take anything away from GT coz of the "non frame damage". there are alot of other parts of the vehicle to consider that start to wear as soon as u take a hard turn ;)

@highcod. dam that crash was sick..... remember guys, we are playing games trying to sim real life. if they went all the way like the crash in highcod's video, the games would be no fun as u would be f*****d waiting for other racers to finish...lol

I don't feel like finding the video or the quote but the reason GT won't have crashing is because car companies who sell out the rights for their cars to be included in a game either don't want their cars to get crashed or they charge more. The developed for Forza talked about this in an interview...Anyways in Forza you hit a wall you lose a bumper or two, you can screw up steering etc. I mean that's real enough for me and by adding the crashing it challenges the player to be a true race car driver. I mean how lame would Nascar and F1 be if all the cars just drove around the track crashing into every wall and using it as steering help? It's about the skill, (which if your making a racing game) wouldn't that what you should want it to be about?

GT is the best racing driver around - bar none. I played the other ones - and still - GT is just a cut above. Having said that - I really really think they should have damage this time around. What would be the real incentive to not just play GT4 on the PS2 if they don't have damage this time.

OK - so the GT:HD is just a tech demo free download - and damage would most probably be included with GT5 - well, I really hope so. If not - it will not be worthwhile getting.

My personal opinion is that damaage is the epitome of simulation. Can't have a simulation without it. I was able to accept it in previous generations because quite frankly to simulate damage is no easy task (thinking from a physics point of view). Can it be done, sure. Can it be done authentically, we'll see. I'm looking forward to the damage models in Forza 2 to see how authentic they are. If anything, the competition of Forza 2 (assuming they implement the damage model well) will force Polyphony hand. Only good for gaming ... see folks, competition is good.